Say what you will about Jose Solorio, but he knows the score. As the Democratic Party’s sole candidate in the race to replace Lou Correa in the 34th State Senate District, Solorio is quite aware that he must pull out all the stops in order to beat the leading Republican candidate, and Queen of corruption, Janet Nguyen, in what is a very purple district. Continue reading→

It turns out that Santa Ana Council Member Carlos Bustamante’s last hurrah was the 2nd Annual Santa Ana Independence Day event at Centennial Park, which was held last Sunday. He was arrested the very next day, after parking his car in a parking structure at City Hall, on charges of sex crimes and public theft.

One of the things that always bothered me about Bustamante was his overstated patriotism and gung ho attitude towards public safety. It always felt fake to me. He once compared himself to movie character Forrest Gump, a pretty dumb guy who made out over time by being in the right place at the right time. That is the story of Bustamante’s life. Continue reading→

When Francisco Barragan got only 605 votes, as a Democratic candidate in the Open Primary election for the 69th Assembly District, this year, according to Smart Voter, he may well have set a record for futility in Assembly races. I spent a few hours searching for any comparable results and found none. Barragan appears to be the most unpopular candidate for the California State Assembly in the history of our state.

Barragan is by no means the first Orange County Democrat to utterly fail on Election Day. When Liberal OC blogger Chris Prevatt ran for the Garden Grove City Council, way back in 2002, he came in dead last in a field of five candidates, according to Smart Voter – but even with that stinky effort he got over 3,000 votes. Barragan only got 605 votes. Continue reading→

The Orange County Voter Registrar finally closed the ballot counting from the June 5 Open Primary, yesterday. Ultra liberal 69th Assembly District candidate Julio Perezlost by 242 votes to Republican Jose “Joe” Moreno, who will now face off against top vote-getter Tom Daly, a corporate Democrat, in the November General Election.

Perez and his union allies spent a small fortune and all they got out of it was third place. I have argued in a previous post that Perez and fellow Democrat Michele Martinez both erred by not attacking Daly, but there might be more to this story. Continue reading→